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Synopsis

When twin brothers love the same woman, is two times the romance worth double the trouble? Especially when one is a ghost?

The sudden death of David Fitzwilliam, Earl of Norwick, is a crushing blow to his countess, Clarinda. Their four-year union was a celebrated love match. With her year of mourning just beginning, Clarinda takes comfort in knowing she carries a child. She could give birth to the next earl, but it’s David’s identical twin brother Daniel who will assume the duties of the earldom until an heir is old enough.

Too bad Clarinda’s last encounter with the despicable man went so poorly. He claimed to have been the Fitzwilliam that courted her and asked for her hand in marriage, implying that Clarinda had accepted David’s suit only to become a countess. But Clarinda is quite certain it was David who captured her heart all those years ago. Now that she’ll have to live in the same house as Daniel, though, she wonders how she’ll manage. “He despises me,” she tells her best friend and confidante Adele Grandby, Countess of Torrington, recounting how she slapped her brother-in-law so hard she thought she broke her arm.

Adele has a secret she cannot yet share with the widow. Her husband, Grandby, is hell-bent on making sure one of his goddaughters is properly wed. Dorothea, the dowager countess, seems to have plans for her daughter-in-law and the spare heir when she isn’t spending quality time with a younger viscount. And the ghost of David has become a nightly visitor to Clarinda’s bedchamber, hinting that she’s carrying twins and making comments that would suggest he’s suddenly rather fond of his brother – and inferring that Clarinda should be, too.

Clarinda has no idea David’s ghost has been visiting Daniel, acting in part as a matchmaker and soothsayer while insisting his death was not, in fact, an accident. “I was shot,” David claims, encouraging Daniel to do a bit of investigating while considering his brother’s blessing in regard to Clarinda.

Daniel needs no encouragement when it comes to Clarinda – he’s loved the woman since her come-out and will gladly take her as his wife when she’s out of mourning. If she’ll have him. He still remembers how hard she slapped him all those years ago.

Through the funeral, the reading of the will, and David’s burial, these would-be lovers will learn more about David’s past and determine the fishy circumstances that led to his death. But will they discover if their own futures are meant to be shared with one another? Twins are double the fun in The Widowed Countess.